Spirited Away: Tales of the Bathhouse, by Littlerhymes

[espresso_addict]

FANDOM: Spirited Away
FIC LINK: Tales of the Bathhouse
AUTHOR LINK: Littlerhymes
RATING/WARNING(S): General | None
WIP?/WORD COUNT: Complete | 4000 words
MAIN CHARACTERS: Lin, Kamaji, Yubaba, OCs

FIC SUMMARY: Three stories of the bathhouse and its inhabitants.

RECCER'S NOTES: Spirited Away is an anime film by Hayao Miyazaki which inspires some wonderful fanfiction, but nearly all of it homes in on the major ship. This charming story instead focuses on minor & original characters and uses a set of tales within a tale to give a fuller picture of life in the bathhouse as well as the backstory of some of its inhabitants. As it's set after the film, there's a hint of Haku's future, too.

Doctor Who: Looked Up in Perfect Silence at the Stars, by Doyle

[espresso_addict]

FANDOM: Doctor Who
FIC LINK: Looked Up in Perfect Silence at the Stars
AUTHOR LINK: doyle_sb4, Doyle-sb4, Doyle@Teaspoon
RATING/WARNING(S): G | None
WIP?/WORD COUNT: Complete | ~1900 words
MAIN CHARACTERS: Sarah Jane Smith, Romana II

FIC SUMMARY: “If he’d left me on Earth,” Sarah said, “if he’d had time to take me home, like he’d meant to, before he got dragged back here... everything would have been different. My whole life.”

RECCER'S NOTES: Doyle's one of my favourite DW writers; I think this brief conversation piece is one of her best. It centres around the Time War, with a clever, disturbing look at the fallout that will send you back to the start as soon as you've finished the final paragraphs. The characters, all women, leap off the page, and their humour, bravery & pragmatism lighten what might otherwise be a very dark piece. Set on Gallifrey, it's also imbued with a lovely wistful sense of place.

I'm tagging this for author rec as I've never encountered a story of Doyle's that wasn't worth reading, and many of her works are gen. She also writes in the Buffyverse.